The lip-gloss you carefully paint on, waiting for him to drive up in his old, green truck and whisk you away to the wonderous place he’s promised you. The bubblegum he buys you when you sit on the concrete wall by the river. The matching set of underwear you wear when he lays you down for a night that you can’t forget seem to mirror this colors, looking back, it’s almost mocking. The two small lines on the baby blue, 20 dollar plastic that you bought with your friend, the ones that burn the lines of your eyes, the pure white being bled through red. It’s the color his face blooms as you tell him the news and you both cry. The soft blanket he got for the two of you, is cradled inside a shining bag. The paint you smear on to the walls in this brand new apartment, one that smells like old socks and wet cardboard, but it’s perfect all the same. The gown you wear as you are rolled into that bleach-smelling room. The color of your brand new, most favorite person, wrapped in a towel, bright and winking her cerulean eyes at the world. The shirt that she wears on her first day of school, when you and he spend the day sitting on your bed and digging through boxes of her childhood. It’s the lip-gloss you gift her for her first date, the one that she comes home beaming from, the one you can’t stop crying over. The paper that crinkles for the second time now, once to shield, another to unfurl, revealing itself to the woman who sits in front of you, effervescent, illuminating the room, angelic in her heavenly dress. The harsh, aging grooves of her face that guide the scalding seas as she holds the memories up for you to gaze at from your position on the soft cushion that will tie you to this earth. The lip-gloss that she pulls across your lips (the lips that look like you have just recently eaten a raspberry popsicle) that makes you the same person you were 80 years ago, when you first dabbed on the thick, gooey liquid, although this time, the chariot you’re waiting for, isn’t quite a green truck.